Sollecito was convicted ONCE and not ever found “innocent”. The verdict was that he was probably at the scene of the crime, and Knox definitely so. And that fail was despite a mighty effort to corrupt two Italian courts.

Who knows what new tricks behind the scenes are being played now? But if the Florence judge really studies the record of the early days, there is no way in which Sollecito gets paid.

He ADMITTED on 5-6 November 2007 that he had lied to the cops, because Knox made him do so. That same night he signed a confession to that effect. Lying to the cops is itself a crime.

And Sollecito was treated extremely fairly throughout. He and Knox had half a dozen judicial hearings even before the 2009 trial began.

He and Knox failed to win release at every one - all the judges ending with Judge Micheli who wrote up the case against them at length turned his pleas down, moving him from prison to mere house arrest being one.

One of Sollecito’s and Knox’s failed attempts at being sprung before trial was an appeal directly to the Supreme Court (amazing - try that in the UK or US!).

Our translation by Catnip of the Gemelli judgment is highly worth a read (there is a similar judgement for Knox) as the Florence court has to decide: did the Gemmeli court act unfairly in light of the list of evidence here?

Gemelli Court Decision on Raffaele Sollecito’s 2008 Appeal (English)

Summary

Held: the decision to continue pre-trial prison detention for the suspect was reasonable.

THE REPUBLIC OF ITALY
IN THE NAME OF THE ITALIAN PEOPLE
THE SUPREME COURT OF CASSATION
SECTION 1 CRIMINAL DIVISION

(1) RS, born on X, against Order of 30/11/2007 Liberty Court of Perugia;

having heard the relation made by Member Emilio Giovanni Gironi;
having heard the conclusions of the Prosecutor-General Dr Consolo for its rejection;
having heard the defence advocates G and T (substituting for advocate M).

REASONS FOR THE DECISION

The order referred to in opening confirmed, at the Re-examination stage, the one by which the GIP [the Preliminary Investigation Magistrate] had applied pre-trial prison detention of RS for participation in the murder of MSCK, the which occurring in Perugia on the evening of the 1st of November 2007 by means of a cutting weapon, in an alleged context of sexual assault by a group, in which there would have taken part, in addition to S, his girlfriend AK and a RHG, who had left behind a palm print on the bloodied pillow on which the victim’s body was resting and whose DNA was found on the vaginal swab taken from the body of the same and on faecal traces found in a bathroom of the house that the victim was sharing with Ms AK and two Italian students.

The picture of circumstantial evidence specifically concerning S consists of the identification of a print left in haematic material present at the scene of the crime of a sports shoe held to be compatible, because its dimensions and configuration of the sole, with the type of footwear, “N” brand size 42.5, used by the suspect; of the recovery – in the kitchen of his house – of a kitchen knife bearing traces of Ms AK’s DNA on the handle and on the blade traces of Ms MK’s DNA; and of the collapse of the alibi put up by the young man (having been disproven by technical investigations carried out), in which, as asserted by him, he had interacted with his computer during the hours in which, according to the forensic pathologist’s reconstruction, the criminal fact would have occurred, that is between 22:00 and 23:00 of the 1st November 2007; from the investigations carried out up until now it would appear, in fact, that the last interaction with the machine on 1 November occurred at 21:10 and that the subsequent one took place at 5:32 the day after, when S also reactivated his mobile phone, acts witnessing thereby an agitated and sleepless night. Equally disproven was that the young man had received a phone call from his father at 23:00 on the night of the murder, it resulting, instead, that said call had happened at 20:40.

Against S, caught at the time of arrest with a switchblade initially considered compatible with the wounds found on the neck of the victim, would line up, in addition, the mutability of the stories given to the investigators by the same and by his girlfriend, having initially maintained they had remained the whole evening and night in the young man’s house, later to state, instead, that at a certain point Ms AK would have left to meet the Ivorian [sic] citizen PDL, manager of a pub in which Ms AK was undertaking casual employment, she making a returning to her boyfriend’s house only around one in the morning.

It must, finally, be added that the same Ms AK had, amongst other things, initially referred (not confirming, in any case, the thesis in confused and contradictory subsequent versions) to having taken herself to her own house with L, where this latter (he also was struck with a custody order, later revoked after the previously mentioned identification of G’s DNA) had had sexual relations with Ms MK, and to having, while she herself was in the kitchen, heard her friend scream, without, further, remembering anything else of the subsequent events, up until the occurrences of the day after, marked by the discovery of traces of blood in the small bathroom next to Ms MK’s room and culminating in the discovery of the body, after the intervention of the forces of law and order (the police appear, in particular, to have intervened prior to the call to 112 effected by S); in particular, the young woman was specifically pointing out not being able to remember whether S were also present in the victim’s house on the occasion of the events just described.

The Re-examination Court concluded recognizing, for the purposes of maintaining pre-trial detention, the persistence of all the types of pre-trial exigencies mentioned by Article 274 Criminal Procedure Code.

The S defence has indicated an appeal, on the grounds of, with new reasons as well:

- reference to Ms AK alone of the circumstantial evidence constituted by the presence of biological traces from her and from the victim on the knife found at S’s house;

- absence, at the scene of the crime, of biological traces attributable to the suspect [ndr: note, this was before the bra-clasp tests had been done];

- arbitrary transference onto S of the weighty circumstantial evidence against Ms AK, on the unfounded assumption that the pair could not have been anything but together at the moment of the homicidal fact;

- inexistent evidential value of the phases relative to the discovery of the body;

- absence of blood traces from the soles of the “N” shoes worn by the suspect even at the moment of his arrest;

- absence of any evidential value of merit, alleged failure of the alibi, constituting the use of his computer, of which the falsity has not in any case been ascertained, of the lack of interaction by the subject with the machine after the last operation at 21:10 not permitting the inference that the computer was not, however, engaged in downloading files (being, to be specific, films);

- irrelevancy of the mistake revealed between the indicated time of the phone call to the father furnished by S and the actual time of the call, given the uncertainty of the time of death of the victim, depending on the time, otherwise uncertain, of the consumption of the dinner (according to various witness statements coinciding with 18:00), it being well able, therefore, for the time indicated by the forensic pathologist (23:00) to be revised backwards to 21:00, a little before which time the witness P had referred to having made a visit to S, finding him at home and not on the verge of going out;

- interpretability of the so-called unlikelihood of the versions supplied by the suspect as attempts to cover for (aid and abet) another subject;

- attribution of the victim’s biological traces found on the knife seized at S’s house to chance contamination not related to the homicidal fact;

- insufficiency of the pre-trial exigencies, having diminished in a probative sense after the return to Italy of G; those relating to risk of flight lacking in specificity and concreteness; and with reference to the conventional content of blogs posted on the internet by the suspect, those relating to danger to society illogically reasoned;

- missing appearance of the young man’s walk, via security cameras installed along the route that the aforesaid would have had to traverse to go from his house to that of the victim’s.

THE APPEAL IS UNFOUNDED

As regards what this Court is permitted to appreciate, not being able here to proceed with a re-reading of the investigative results nor with an alternative interpretation of the factual data referred to in the custody order, the appellant defence substantially contests the recognition, as against S, of the necessary requisite of grave indicia of culpability. The question thus posed and submitted for scrutiny by this bench of the well-known limits of the competence of the court of merit, it must be held that the finding expressed by the Re-examination judges concerning the gravity of the frame of circumstantial evidence is not susceptible to censure.

Not upheld, in the first place, is the defence submission according to which the knife bearing the genetic prints of Ms AK and of Ms MK found in S’s house would constitute a piece of evidence relevant solely as against the young woman, even if privy of traces attributable to the suspect, the utensil has as always been found in the young man’s house, and the testimony acquired up until now has led to the exclusion that it formed part of the inventory of the house inhabited by the victim, and which, at the time, and until proved to the contrary, must be held to be the same available for use by the suspect and which had been used in MK’s house, there being contested no access by her to S’s house.

Given the multitude of group contributive possibilities, the fact is not significative, then, in itself being a neutral element, that on the scene of the crime there are no biological traces attributable to S, to which, in any case, is attributable the “N” brand shoe print considered compatible, by dimensions and sole configuration, with the footwear worn by the suspect at the time of arrest. Although having the same impugned order excluded, at the time, the certainty of the identification constitutes as, in any case, a certain datum that the print in question had been made in haematic material found in Ms MK’s room by a shoe of the kind and of the dimensions of those possessed by the appellant, while it remains to be excluded that this could have originated from G’s shoe, who wore a size 45 and, therefore, dimensions notably larger. The revealed coincidence, notwithstanding the residual uncertainty on the identification, assumes particular valency in relation to the restricted circle of subjects gravitating to the scene of the homicide, with not even Ms AK, who made admissions about her presence on site at the same time as the execution of the offence, excluding the presence of her boyfriend in the victim’s house in the same circumstance; nor can it be held that the print could have been left by S the following morning, he never having claimed to have entered into the room wherein the body was lying.

It does not answer, therefore, to verity that, as against the young man, there had been recognized, by a phenomenon of transference, items of circumstantial evidence in reality pointing solely to Ms AK.

The last finding held unfavourable to S is constituted by the failed proof of the alibi constituted by the argument of the suspect as having remained at home on the computer until late at night; it being a matter of, properly speaking, an alibi failing up till now and not of a false alibi and the defence, correctly, does not refute the technico-judicial valency of the circumstantial evidence, but it remains, in any case, acquired into the case file that the accused had not been able to prove his absence from the locus of the crime at the same time. An item up until now assumed as certain is, instead, the fact that S had interacted with his computer at 5:32 the morning following the murder, at around the same time reactivating his own mobile phone, a contradiction of the assumption of a waking up only at 10:00 and a symptomatic tell-tale of a more or less sleepless night; likewise as symptomatic was held to be the nearly simultaneous cessation of telephonic traffic as much by Ms AK, in his company the evening of 1 November 2007.

The proof of a permanent stay in his house by the suspect can, all told, be considered as acquired up until 20:40 – coincident with P’s visit – who confirmed his presence, or up until 21:10, the last interaction time on the computer, but this does not cover the time of the homicide, located between 22:00 and 23:00.

As for the proposed argument that S’s conduct were interpreted as aiding and abetting, this does not result, in the event, as being supported by anything emerging from the investigations and its plausibility cannot be verified by the judges of merit.

In conclusion, the Re-examination Court’s evaluation as to the gravity of the circumstantial evidence picture are removed from the audit of this court.

There remains, finally, the finding that for what concerns the pre-trial exigencies, those of a probative nature are not able to be considered as ceasing from the sole fact of G’s re-entry into Italy (amongst other things significantly never invoked in the statements by the suspect and by his girlfriend, who instead co-involved L in the proceedings), given the existence of an investigative picture in continual evolution, in which the positions of the various protagonists so far remain unclear, the changing versions of which are marked by reticence and mendaciousness (the same suspect had, in truth, admitted to having, at least initially, told ‘a load of balls’); but the permanence of pre-trial exigencies had been held reasonablely even under the aspect of flight risk, in relation to the gravity of the charges and of the potential sanctions, not to mention danger to society, given the revealed fragility of character and the specific personal traits of the subject, – which would narrowly evaluate as innocuous youthful stereotypes –, in a context the more connoted by the noted habitual use of drugs.

FOR THESE REASONS

Rejects the appeal and sentences the appellant to payment of costs of the proceedings. Article 94 para 1 ter, and activating provisions, Criminal Procedure Code, applies.

Comments

Interesting case in 2012 when an Albanian man, Edmund Arapi was arrested at Gatwick on his return from holiday in his native Albania. He had been found guilty in Italy *in absentia* of murder, and was held five weeks in the UK before being extradite to Italy where he was held for a few more months. He received £18K/€28 for the five weeks, which suggests he didn’t get any whilst on remand in Italy.

However, in his case, he really was wrongfully convicted, for he was able to prove he was in England when the murder took place and they mistook his name for the name of another man (IIRC the BBC tv programme Panorama investigated Albanian ‘criminals on the run’ in the UK and seem to suggest he pulled a fast one over the name business).

Whether Raffaele Sollecito will get compensation will depend on what the penal code means by ‘wrongful conviction’, does it mean all those eventually found ‘not guilty’, or only those where the defendant can prove his or her innocence. For example, the ‘real perpetrator’ being caught or some new evidence.

Does anyone know of any other cases in Italy where someone convicted at first and second instance and then acquitted due to ‘insufficient evidence’ receives the full compensation at €500 *per diem* capped at €516K.

Does it hold true that if police had reasonable belief to incarcerate one, then that doesn’t qualify you for compensation, say, you tell them a substantial lie? But is not lying by defendants allowed in Italy? I know the answer is, ‘only if they are guilty’, so is changing your story a block on compensation?

Marasca-Bruno stated that the 530,2 acquittal was because of (a) investigative amnesia and flawed investigation, and (b) adverse press reporting (although there is no *sub judice* law in Italy).

Will this be a get-out clause for Raff’s fibbing to the police?

Does it have such a thing as ‘contributory liabilty’ whereby the award can be reduced by 25% - 75% because of the ex-defendant’s own actions, such as Raff taking his knife into the questura and withdrawing his alibi for Amanda Knox?

Another interesting thing to note would be the percentage of persons claiming such compensation succeeding and if so, did they get the full amount claimed?

Sollecito really does have a face (and an extremely unfortunate, simpering personality) that I would not get bored of tap dancing on. He must surely have been bullied at school.

Sadly Derbyshire is only too typical of the standard of journalist prevalent within the once proud BBC; an organisation that is now nothing more than a propaganda channel promulgating a politically correct, social justice warrior type agenda. There isn’t even the pretence of balance these days in any of its news output. It appears to be trying to out Channel 4 , Channel 4 as the main Pravda channel on mainstream U.K. TV. It really is something to behold. And really rather sad.

Any journalist worth their salt would have checked their researchers findings before Sollecito came on and pinned the human filth to the wall. A moderately bright child could have done a better job than Victoria.

When he answered the question about what he was doing in future by saying part of his plans were to help other wrongly convicted people, I almost choked laughing. He won’t help a single person. This was a platitude designed to make him look like a truth crusader anxious that no one else suffers the way he has. He delivered the line with absolutely no conviction and if Victoria had the sense she was born with she would have picked up on this and pushed him to ask exactly how he would do this; he would have had no answer. He only got the idea because his murdering tart of an ex partner has declared she’s on the same crusade.

Obviously, I fervently hope that he receives no compensation whatsoever but even if he does, I don’t think it will bring him anything more than a fleeting spike in adrenaline. I think his conscience may bother him more than Knox’s does. Money cannot salve a guilty conscience. After all, it was Knox who dragged him into her jealous rage against Meredith; a person that he had no personal animosity towards at all.

But, like Lady MacBeth, he can shout “out damned spot, out I say!” all he likes, he will never be able to scrub the metaphorical blood stains of Meredith’s heinous murder from his bony hands. Nor will all the perfumes of Arabia sweeten his knife wielding little hands which wrought such devastation on an innocent young woman.

He’s beneath contempt the boy. A good for nothing who will amount to nothing. Vermin.

Interview? Nice chat more like by the BBC.
Absolutely pathetic questioning. Not only Victoria Derbyshire but the whole research team behind this useless interview.
I watched an episode of Kitchen Nightmares recently and Gordon Ramsey made the effort to read a book (written by the restaurant owner) till 4am to better understand the owner’s problems. Maybe he should be the next interviewer of guilty Raffaele Sollecito.
I so agree with David Mulhern; the BBC does seem to have a politically correct, social justice warrior type agenda.
Guilty Raffaele Sollecito only talks about the Kercher’s loss when asked if he thinks about them by Victoria Derbyshire. If she hadn’t he clearly wouldn’t have.
The full interview is here. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08bqlzc/victoria-derbyshire-26012017
It starts at 19 minutes.

I had to watch this on mute at work and it was interesting from the POV of body language. He had obviously been groomed to, ‘try and look serious’. Thus it was entertaining to watch all the micro-expressions of a smirk glancing about his lips, barely contained, throughout, breaking out like a sun from behind a cloud when asked about his funeral business. It was like watching someone perpetrating an enormous prank on a pal, looking super-grave and trying not to give the game away by laughing out loud.

He as agitated and fidgety, leaning forward as though eager to listen. Being unconsionable, his replies were readily ‘off the cuff’ - unlike the measured pauses and heavy thinking of his partner in crime - which whilst indicating ‘openness’, unfortunately (for him) came across as flippancy.

I didn’t think Victoria Derbyshire was fooled at all. She sits there with one eyebrow raised and and look of horror on her features. I thought given Raff’s right to vet and embargo the interview, via his agent (would that be Nigel?), her questions were actually quite well-aimed and brought out his superficial glibness beautifully in his responses.

I agree KrissyG that Derbyshire wasn’t fooled and your summation of the body language aspect is very much on the mark.

I guess we’d need to know just how strict the vetting of the questions was to know whether Derbyshire could have done more. I accept my rush to judgement in this case may have been misplaced.

That said, I’ve seen quite a bit of our Victoria’s output and she’s consistently lightweight so I’m not sure she could have done much better with Sollecito even if she was unfettered. Assuming she was indeed fettered.

Victoria Derbyshire is no Jeremy Paxman (hard-hitting political interviewer, who won’t take evasion for an answer) she’s breakfast time sit-on-the-sofa chat show. Even when Raffy was on HARDTALK he was given an easy time, some while back. I guess they have to be mindful of libel laws. But why interview ‘unsavoury’ types at all? If newsworthy, then put it on Newsnight, with some hard-hitting searching questions.

Gemelli judgment calls RS a liar and points out “the mutability of the stories” he gave investigators. Mutability, that’s for sure. Changing with the wind, RS flipped and flopped and tried every color like a chameleon. He said he and Foxy were cozy at home all night. Then, oops, he said she went out of his apartment to link up with her boss and didn’t return until around 1:00 in the morning!

He said his dad called him at 23:00 on the night of the murder. That was wrong, the call was much earlier.

RS would never tell police he was awake at 5:30 the morning after Meredith’s murde, but honest cell phone records told them. He interacted on his computer at about 5:30am. That sleepyhead was up for a reason. The liar said he slept late in his cozy bed until 10:00am.

Mutability is Raf’s middle name. He even admitted he had told the police a bunch of lies. He doesn’t deserve one dime from the Italian state. Rather, he should be paying them for his actions of obstructing justice and his attempt to derail the murder investigation. In the end he had no alibi for the time of the murder. Oh, daddy called me, oh I was on my computer, oh I was sleeping in, oh sweetie left me, yes she ran off maybe she did the murder by herself. Oh oh oh, one excuse after another all proved useless and were debunked, thus proving Raf was not to be trusted or believed.

How come you and Amanda looked like death warmed up outside the cottage despite your long lie in?

Why did you say that you had been dealing with e-mails and surfing the net until 1 am despite no evidence to that effect, and indeed evidence to the contrary?

Did you enjoy “Stealing Fat” and the other music you and Amanda listened to for half an hour starting at 5.30 am on the morning after Meredith’s death?

Why did you lie about that?

Do you still confirm (as you wrote in your prison diary) that Filomena’s door was wide open when you and Amanda entered the cottage?

What “strange things” did you think Guede might say about you upon his arrest?

What were you and Amanda arguing about when you were both seen by Curatolo in Grimana Square just after 9 pm on the night of the murder?

Why did you tell a friend that Meredith’s naked body was covered in vaseline?

Why did you call your sister before the 112 emergency services?

Why did you tell a reporter from the Sunday Mirror that it was you and Amanda who had discovered Meredith’s body when the evidence is, clearly, that neither of you did?

What was the private joke between you and Amanda in the police station about the word “minaccia”?

Why was Meredith’s DNA clearly on the blade of your kitchen knife in circumstances where NO JUDGE was ever able to suggest, other than as a most unlikely hypothesis, that there had been contamination, either on collection, in transit or in the lab?

Your explanation for the above was primary transfer. Well, that’s right but not in the circumstances you described. Why did you lie?

What is it with you about death, violence, knives, pornographic material and your general lack of empathy and respect for the murdered girl and her family? You have disrespected their wishes, exposed your unhealthy obsessions to the public and crowed about it all on line before and after the murder. Should you not, in all honesty, see a psychiatrist and get help?

I will write to Louisa Compton, the editor of Derbyshire’s show (and previously the producer of Debyshire’s blog a few years ago), at the BBC this week and ask her the direct question: “Did Rafaelle Sollecito agree to appear on Victoria Derbyshire’s show under strict conditions that all questions would be previously approved by his people or that certain subjects were taboo?”.

I will then list most of the questions outlined by KrissyG and James Raper (I’ll add in a question about the final motivation report saying Knox wiped Meredith’s blood from her hands and was definitely at the crime scene and that Sollecito was most likely there too) and make the point that most sentient beings would genuinely like to hear from the man himself regarding these crucial issues rather than listen to a puff piece where he gets to talk about poor him and how this dreadful affair has impacted on his worthless life. I’ll leave that final bit after “puff piece” out in an attempt to be cordial and elicit a decent response!

I’ll make the point that there is a fantastic documentary waiting to be made which could be centred around maybe the top ten or top twenty questions that Sollecito and Knox have either never answered adequately, flip flopped on or have blatantly lied about. You never know, maybe it will pique the interest of somebody with a heart at the BBC.

If I get a response, I will post it here. If Louisa doesn’t reply, I will escalate it upwards.

Meantime, here is a screenshot of Louisa Compton’s tweet on 26 January heralding the Sollecito slot on Derbyshire’s programme.

Conversation

Louisa Compton‏ @louisa_compton

EXCLUSIVE: “I am a victim” - Raffaele Sollecito tells @vicderbyshire after he was wrongly imprisoned for the murder of Meredith Kercher

BREAKING Solly’s compo claim thrown out! ‘ANSA) - PERUGIA, FEBRUARY 11 - Rejected by the Court of Appeal of Florence, the claim for wrongful imprisonment advanced by Raffaele Sollecito, finally acquitted of the charge of having participated in the murder of Meredith Kercher. He asked over 500 thousand euro for almost four years in jail before being released from prison. As learned by ANSA Tuscan courts have held contradictory his statements in the initial survey. ’ - Too many lies in the early stages.

It’s perhaps helpful to repeat what most of us know. Knox is a serial accuser…

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